For most Indian households, succession planning is closely tied to real estate. The property bug usually bites early because the ultimate aim is to ensure that you at least leave your kids with a roof over their heads. And accumulating property becomes a proxy for saving for the next generation. Well-intentioned as this may be, it is slightly misguided.

Real estate demands money, time and physical effort for its upkeep and all of this can become increasingly painful and tiring with age. Worse, an asset intended to provide security can turn into a succession nightmare when children have settled elsewhere, have no plans to return and must manage or sell the property remotely.

Some seniors are recognising this early. They are selling, downsizing or redeveloping their homes, using the proceeds to improve their retirement or converting illiquid property into financial assets that are easier to manage and divide. Wealth works best when it’s fungible. But the key takeaway here is not that every retiree should sell their home. It is that parents should avoid becoming asset-rich but cash-poor merely to provide a roof for the next generation may neither need nor want. In this excellent story, Shipra Singh speaks with seniors about what prompted them to rethink their property holdings and how doing so improved their quality of life while simplifying succession planning.

In the same vein of warning against letting compelling narratives replace financial judgement, Jash Kriplani writes about the IPO euphoria as more issues are expected this month. For retail investors, IPO investing demands extreme caution. The excitement around growth stories and potential listing-day gains can easily turn investors into speculators and IPOs into lottery tickets.

Unlike established listed companies, IPO-bound businesses have no track record of exchange disclosures or trading history. Investors must rely largely on the red herring prospectus (RHP) to assess the business. The story handholds investors through a handful of sections that can reveal red flags around corporate governance, financial quality, the reasons for listing and how the IPO proceeds will be used.

These sections can also help determine whether valuation being sought is justified. It is important to understand, though, that beyond the IPO frenzy, investors may be better off investing via mutual funds, where you simply outsource stock selection to an index or a fund manager who has developed the required skill set.

And on the subject of applying extreme caution when the track record is limited is this brilliant story by Ann Jacob on foreign universities setting up campuses in India. These campuses promise global degrees at a fraction of the cost of studying overseas, without the burden of steep living expenses, visa uncertainty and recurring travel costs. But parents and students must look beyond the pull of a foreign university name. Most of these campuses are still in their infancy, with limited placement data and little evidence of how employers will value their degrees compared with those awarded at the parent campus. Then there is the question of whether they can offer the same global exposure that comes with studying abroad—an experience that can play a huge role in shaping one’s outlook and building alumni networks.

The story explains what families should verify before signing up and the questions they must ask to ensure they can extract maximum value from a foreign degree, even when it comes at a much lower cost. While the opportunity seems promising, look beyond the hype and allow these institutions time to establish credible academic and employment track records.

On insurance this week, Aprajita Sharma looks at term insurance policies designed specifically for students pursuing higher education. Term insurance is a life insurance plan that pays a specified amount, known as the sum assured, to the beneficiaries if the policyholder dies.

Linking large liabilities to insurance is not new. Term insurance is popular among home loan borrowers. A typical cover linked to a home loan is a decreasing term insurance plan, where the cover reduces over time as the outstanding liability falls. A similar hook–of covering huge liability through life insurance is now being used for students, particularly those funding higher education through hefty loans.

The product itself is a standard term insurance plan, although it may come with several add-ons. But the need for it must be assessed carefully. Students typically have no financial dependents, so term insurance at this stage may be redundant. However, if a student’s sudden death could leave the family with a substantial loan or place it under severe financial strain, a term insurance plan may be worth considering.

And finally, an important story on making a will. Both awareness of and action on succession planning remain woefully inadequate. The importance of making a will also remains understated, even though dying without one can create considerable friction in a family.

As other aspects of our lives turn digital, online platforms are making estate planning simpler and more accessible. In this story, Aprajita Sharma examines their offerings and costs. Most follow a layered approach—from basic guidance for those taking the do-it-yourself route to complete handholding through identifying assets, drafting the will and getting it registered. While digital platforms can help, you may also want to consider a good estate-planning lawyer if you need a better handhold and follow-ups, specially if your assets are widely spread or you are dealing with complicated ownership structures.

The objective is to account for all your assets, establish their correct ownership and plug any gaps so that the will is comprehensive. In that sense, the real choice is not simply between online and offline. It is about getting the right expertise so that the will can actually be implemented when the family needs it most.

In Money Guru this week, Jash Kriplani spoke to R. Sivakumar, chief investment officer at Axis Mutual Fund, who sees pockets of opportunities across large-, mid- and small-caps even in a range-bound market. Sivakumar also explains why he believes that growth is showing signs of revival.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

As I write this, a friend is trying to settle a health insurance claim for his daughter. The insurer denied cashless treatment on the grounds that the condition for which she was hospitalised might have been pre-existing.

This is precisely the kind of confusion the insurance regulator sought to prevent when it defined a pre-existing condition as one involving prior symptoms requiring a doctor’s diagnosis or prescribed medication. The child had neither, yet the claim was denied. Fortunately, she was admitted under the care of her paediatrician, who was able to review her medical history and establish that the condition was not pre-existing.

Health insurance claims are becoming increasingly complicated, and not all complications end in a rejection. Some leave you paying more than half your hospital bill from your own pocket. One of the biggest shocks for policyholders is discovering the various deductions that can lead to such hefty payments despite having adequate cover.

Consider this example: a policyholder incurred a hospital bill of ₹2.11 crore and was insured for an even higher amount. Yet the insurer approved only Rs 85 lakh, leaving the patient to pay Rs 1.26 crore. The deductions fell under various heads, ranging from the familiar “reasonable and customary charges” to the more baffling “hospital discount”—an arrangement between the hospital and insurer. The insurer applies this discount while settling the claim, while the hospital tries to recover the amount from the policyholder.

It is common to expect an out-of-pocket payment of 10-15% for incidental expenses such as non-payable consumables. But imagine having to pay more than half the hospital bill yourself.

In this excellent story, Aparajita Sharma takes a deep dive into the various deductions insurers may apply to your final hospital bill. She explains why you should understand them in advance and how to be battle-ready when the time comes to make your policy work for you.

A tax amnesty, with a catch

Being battle-ready matters just as much when dealing with the taxman, especially when an inadvertent oversight can put a target on your back under the Black Money Act. Taxpayers who missed declaring foreign income or assets now have a one-time window under FAST-DS 2026 to correct past omissions and avoid harsher penalties and prosecution.

FAST-DS is aimed at small taxpayers who have inadvertently missed disclosing foreign assets and income, including returning non-resident Indians (NRIs), individuals with overseas bank accounts or investments, and employees holding foreign employee stock options (ESOPs) or restricted stock units (RSUs). The scheme is also available to resident but not ordinarily resident (RNOR) individuals, provided they were residents either in the year the foreign asset was acquired or the year they failed to disclose it.

It covers assets or income from prior years that taxpayers failed to report in their returns, omitted by not filing a return, or that otherwise escaped assessment. The relief is not without cost, though. Depending on the nature and value of the omission and the category you fall under, you may have to pay tax and a penalty or a fixed fee.

The window closes on 31 December 2026, making this story by Shipra Singh an important read on who is eligible, what category you fall under, what it will cost and why you should act in time.

Don’t over-plan your child’s future

In the investment space, Ann Jacob looked at why investing for your child’s education cannot be a straitjacketed exercise. Preparing financially for your child’s future involves hard math, but it also needs to account for a child whose dreams and aspirations may pivot several times.

Instead of planning for one predetermined course or career, parents need a more layered approach: a core corpus for education, a contingency buffer for cost overruns and a choice layer that allows for last-minute pivots, gap years or specialised courses. The key is to start early, review the goal regularly and involve the child in these conversations. This can help ensure that your retirement corpus does not become the casualty of any last-minute surprises.

A tax-efficient fund, with caveats

Shefali Anand this week reviewed income-plus-arbitrage funds, a relatively new category of debt mutual funds designed to deliver debt-like returns with better tax efficiency.

These funds typically invest at least 35% in arbitrage funds and the remainder across debt funds, qualifying them for long-term capital gains tax of 12.5% if held for at least two years. But their short-term returns have been mixed, their debt portfolios vary widely and their complex structure makes comparison difficult. While advisors recommend them to wealthy clients looking to park money for more than two years because of their tax efficiency, they are unlikely to make sense in simple portfolios.

Your money can’t retire

And finally, on the occasion of World Senior Citizens’ Day on 21 August, Ann Jacob looked at the various benefits senior citizens enjoy across taxes, investments and everyday spending in India.

Unlike welfare states and developed economies that provide a state-funded pension layer and stronger healthcare and eldercare systems, seniors in India largely need to rely on their own savings to fund their post-retirement years. Tax concessions, higher interest rates on deposits and discounts on travel and utilities provide some cushioning, but the larger financial responsibility still rests with the individual.

So, even as becoming a senior citizen may mark your retirement from work, your money cannot afford to retire. You still need to keep your eye on the ball to ensure that your corpus lasts through your retirement years.

Investing in the AI era

In this week’s Money Guru, Ananya Grover spoke to Jay Kothari, executive director and international business head at DSP Asset Managers, about why India could emerge as an “AI hedge”. His advice: look for fundamentally strong companies with global and local growth potential that are trading below their intrinsic value, and avoid getting swept up by the coming IPO frenzy.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

There’s growing excitement around FIRE—Financial Independence, Retire Early—and everyone appears eager to get on that bus. Sadly, most conversations around FIRE converge on just one question: How do I retire early?

For many, the desire to retire early stems from working ungodly hours, dealing with a toxic workplace, a difficult boss, or experiencing burnout. FIRE becomes an escape route because it feeds the fantasy of simply walking away. This is where many FIRE aspirants get it wrong. Early retirement is merely one possible outcome, but the real goal that everyone should aspire to is financial independence. This is the secret sauce to living a purposeful life because it gives you the flexibility to take control of your time, walk away from situations that no longer serve you, take a break when you need one, and pursue work that genuinely excites you.

The journey towards financial freedom begins with one fundamental principle: build a lifestyle where you consistently spend less than you earn. But financial readiness alone is not enough—your mindset matters just as much. Have you saved enough to manage an emergency or leave a job you no longer enjoy? Are you willing to keep learning and diversifying your skills to create new opportunities? Can you embrace change, step outside your comfort zone and adapt to unfamiliar environments? Being able to answer these questions in the affirmative is just as important.

Before you embark on this journey, it’s important to understand what you are retiring to and not just what you are retiring from. To fuel your dreams of FIRE, Mint Money put together a special Independence Day edition featuring people from different professions. We explore what motivated them to embark on their FIRE journey, how they achieved financial independence and how they are now using their skills and time to remain meaningfully engaged.

Not too far off from the concept of freedom is the growing number of professionals choosing the gig route. Freelancing offers greater control over one’s time, work, and career, but that freedom comes with a fair share of uncertainty. You live without the security of a regular paycheque or employer-backed benefits and so, managing your money becomes very important. Ann Jacob in this story explains how gig workers can navigate this uncertainty by diversifying their income, building a larger emergency fund and investing with flexibility. The message is clear—professional freedom is sustainable only when it’s supported by financial discipline and mental preparedness.

And one fundamental step towards financial discipline and preparedness is investing regularly. When investing in mutual funds, systematic investment plans are designed to build this discipline. The benefit of SIPs goes beyond just building a habit to invest. Because they spread investments across market cycles, they help investors navigate volatility better. An investor who panics during a downturn often fares worse than one who stays calm and continues investing for the long term.

For compelling evidence, read this insightful story by Jash Kriplani. It explains why investors should avoid reacting to short-term market swings by stopping their SIPs or frequently changing their investments. Staying invested allows investors to benefit from rupee-cost averaging, buying more mutual fund units when prices fall and fewer when they rise, which can soften the impact of volatility over time.

In long-term investing, consistency and sensible asset allocation usually matter more than trying to time the market.

This week, besides stories to help you on your journey towards financial freedom, we have two important reads on credit cards. The first is our annual selection of travel credit cards. In this series, we pick the most rewarding travel-focused credit cards for frequent travellers. Every year brings new surprises and trends worth highlighting. This year, Shipra Singh found that reward programmes are being steadily devalued and travel credit cards are no exception. Not only has the quantum of reward points decreased, but rewards are also increasingly linked to higher spending and subject to tighter caps. Based on your annual income and, consequently, your travel spending, Shipra identifies the best card in each category.

But choosing the best credit card is only half the task; the other half is paying the bills. This is an area that demands greater oversight because a small change in your autopay settings can turn into a costly mistake. When you pay your credit card bill online, say via netbanking, your bank typically offers three options: the minimum amount due (the bare-minimum payment needed to avoid late-payment penalties and being classified as a defaulter), the total amount due, and an amount of your choosing. The same options are available when setting up autopay.

The problem arises when the minimum amount due is selected as the default option and you pay it without realising the costly mistake you are making. When you pay only the bare minimum, the unpaid balance continues to attract steep interest charges. Additionally, you lose the interest-free period on subsequent purchases, and together, these consequences risk pushing you into a debt trap.

Whatever the mode of payment, ensure that you pay the total amount due. Check your payments regularly, especially if you use autopay, to confirm that the entire bill is being cleared. Read the story by Shipra Singh for more on this.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

Over the past month, Mint Money has been examining the issues plaguing health insurance portability. It began with our reporting on health insurance retention rates, where one of the major drivers of churn was policyholders porting their policies.

Portability was introduced by the insurance regulator to ensure customers were not trapped in health insurance policies that didn’t serve them well. The idea was simple: allow policyholders to switch insurers without losing continuity benefits such as the no-claim bonus, waiting periods already served and the time completed towards the 60-month moratorium.

While a strong consumer reform on paper, it appears to be falling apart on the ground. We examined the guardrails meant to protect consumers: the ban on commissions for ported policies to prevent unnecessary churn and the requirement that every portability request be routed through the Insurance Information Bureau of India (IIB) to enable seamless exchange of underwriting and claims information between insurers.

Our reporting found gaps on both fronts. First, commissions are indeed being paid on ported policies and quite brazenly. Intermediaries admitted to us that they receive direct commissions on ported policies, while in some cases policyholders are even being sold fresh policies in the name of portability. Second, our conversations with the IIB revealed there is currently no mechanism to ensure that all portability requests are actually routed through the IIB.

The data gap is equally worrying. There is no meaningful data to assess whether portability is working as intended. How many policies are ported every year? What is the claims experience of ported policies? How many claims are rejected, and do such rejections trigger any compliance review? If underwriting and claims information is expected to flow seamlessly through the IIB, then disputes arising from past disclosures should themselves become a regulatory red flag.

Aprajita Sharma and I examine how a reform meant to protect policyholders is instead exposing them to new risks. In my accompanying column, I argue that these gaps point to a broader regulatory failure.

In the investment space, we have two important stories from Jash Kriplani. The first looks at the rise and fall of South Korea’s stock market and the lessons it leaves in its wake. South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI index hit an all-time high in June before plunging nearly 40% over the next six weeks. Both the rally and the crash were driven by the AI narrative and the index’s heavy dependence on it. More than half the index is concentrated in just two semiconductor giants, Samsung and SK Hynix, making it highly vulnerable to concentration risk.

The decline was then exacerbated by leverage, which can magnify gains during a rally but amplify losses just as quickly when markets reverse. In South Korea’s case, leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tracking Samsung and SK Hynix alone added fuel to the fire. That is the fundamental risk with leverage — borrowed money can supercharge returns in a rising market but unravel portfolios with equal speed when sentiment turns.

The story is an important reminder of why diversification matters and why leverage should be used with caution. But perhaps the most powerful lesson comes from a Korean investor who succumbed to FOMO and invested the money he had set aside to buy an apartment because he didn’t want to miss out on the market rally. Today, he is struggling to pay even the apartment instalment. This is an important reminder that narrative driven investing can derail even the most carefully laid financial plans.

The second story looks at how passive investing is evolving beyond the broad market Nifty 50 and Sensex indices.

As index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have become mainstream, fund houses are launching sectoral and thematic passive funds tracking everything from banks and metals to defence, energy and capital markets. The recent outperformance of several sectors has only added to their appeal. But these are tactical bets, not core holdings. Experts suggest limiting such funds to 15-20% of your portfolio. It’s also advisable to resist spreading small amounts across too many themes that can also dilute the impact.

But before you decide it’s also important to understand that sectoral passive funds are not for everyone. They require a higher risk appetite and an understanding of sector cycles, including when to enter and exit.

In the spending space, Ananya Grover tracks the rise of cash optimisation apps that promise to earn more on the money lying idle in your savings account by parking it in liquid mutual funds or fixed deposits.

Layered with merchant discounts and cashback, these apps appear attractive at first glance. But as the story explains, higher returns also come with trade-offs including costs, exit loads, liquidity constraints that users should weigh carefully.

The final story is for NRIs looking to buy or sell real estate in India. The transaction is not just about finding the right buyer or seller. It also involves navigating a maze of capital gains tax, TDS, FEMA regulations, repatriation rules, documentation requirements and even the right bank account for receiving and remitting the proceeds.

Aprajita Sharma walks readers through the key rules, common pitfalls and practical steps, making this an essential playbook for NRIs navigating property transactions in India.

In this week’s Money Guru, Aprajita Sharma spoke to Narendra Bharindwal, president of the Insurance Brokers Association of India (IBAI), about the Insurance Intermediaries (Amendment) Regulations, 2026. The conversation unpacks what the new rules mean for intermediaries.

Some of the notable changes include mandatory tagging of every policy to the individual salesperson who sold it, perpetual registration in place of periodic licence renewals and stronger governance and disclosure norms aimed at improving accountability across the insurance distribution ecosystem.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

For many NRIs, ageing parents become the strongest reason to return home.

Years ago, a techie friend who had planned to settle in the US made the difficult choice to move back to his Tier II hometown to care for his parents. It wasn’t an impulsive decision. After exhausting help from relatives for hospital visits and increasingly depending on friends, he realised his parents’ growing medical needs could no longer be managed across time zones.

But coming home also meant a financial reset. His income fell sharply, while expenses—from medical care to home loan EMIs—became harder to manage.

His story isn’t unique. Many non-resident Indians who return to care for ageing parents discover that the move demands as much financial planning as emotional readiness.

Ann Jacob examines the financial realities of this reverse migration, from adjusting to lower incomes and managing overseas assets to navigating a new tax regime. The transition should ideally begin months before the flight home: setting up a Power of Attorney for overseas assets, reviewing foreign property and retirement accounts, notifying banks of your change in residential status, completing exit compliance formalities, and making the most of the RNOR window to reorganise foreign assets before they become taxable in India. Experts also advise postponing major investment decisions until both income and life in India have stabilised.

Tax trap

Back home, taxpayers are always looking for legitimate ways to reduce their tax outgo, and any structure that promises a separate taxable entity can sound tempting.

The Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) is one such option. An HUF is a separate legal and tax entity comprising members of a Hindu family who share a common ancestor and family assets. But that doesn’t mean you can simply shift your income into an HUF and lower your tax bill.

For salaried individuals, transferring salary, investments or other personal assets to an HUF rarely delivers any tax benefit. Instead, clubbing provisions often negate the advantage altogether. An HUF works best when it has genuine family wealth of its own—such as ancestral property, inherited assets or a family business. It can also receive certain gifts or be funded through properly documented loans.

There’s another important caveat: once assets are transferred to an HUF, they no longer belong to you individually. Other coparceners acquire rights over them, making any future sale or partition more complicated.

Shipra Singh explains why an HUF can be an effective vehicle for managing family wealth, but is unlikely to be the tax-saving shortcut many salaried taxpayers imagine.

Investment watch

The first looks at SEBI’s proposal for a new category of portfolio management services that would sit between mutual funds and traditional PMS offerings. The proposed mutual fund-only portfolio management services (MF-PMS) will invest exclusively in direct plans of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and specialised investment funds (SIFs).

While such offerings already exist, the new framework would formally recognise the category and introduce its own regulatory structure, along with lower investment thresholds to widen access.

Jash Kriplani spoke to experts to examine whether MF-PMS offers enough value over building a portfolio of mutual funds yourself.

The second story looks at how systematic investment plans, or SIPs, have become part of everyday financial vocabulary—and are now being used to market bonds through monthly auto-debit mandates. Fintech platforms are increasingly offering ‘bond SIPs’, allowing investors to buy a different bond every month. The pitch is straightforward: invest regularly, diversify across issuers and potentially earn higher yields.

But a bond SIP is fundamentally different from a mutual fund SIP. In a mutual fund, even your first instalment gives you exposure to a diversified portfolio. A bond SIP builds diversification gradually, one bond at a time, meaning a default in the early months can have a disproportionately large impact. That’s why understanding the underlying credit risk is critical.

Ananya Grover explains how bond SIPs work and why investors need to look beyond the convenience of the SIP wrapper and carefully assess the bonds they’re actually buying.

Our third story explores active momentum funds, a relatively new category that has attracted investor interest after outperforming the broader market during the recent bout of volatility. Momentum investing involves buying stocks that are performing well and exiting those that begin to lose momentum, using indicators such as price and earnings trends. The active momentum funds have an advantage over passive strategies because fund managers can rebalance more frequently and use tools such as cash allocations or hedging when momentum reverses.

Jash Kriplani explains how these funds work—and why investors should remain cautious, given that the strategy is yet to be tested across multiple market cycles.

In this week’s Money Guru series, Jash Kriplani speaks to Kenneth Andrade, founder and chief investment officer of Old Bridge Mutual Fund, about the sectors he’s bullish on and why he’s avoiding IT despite attractive valuations. Andrade also shares why he remains constructive on Indian equities and the biggest risks he believes markets face.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

Recently, a friend in the armed forces told me that he was considering premature retirement. That’s not unusual. Many people leave the forces after completing pensionable service to secure a guaranteed pension for life and seek better opportunities in the private sector. What shocked me, however, was his reason. He wanted to retire so he could devote more time to trading.

What followed was a long conversation in which I tried, rather unsuccessfully, to dissuade him, while he, equally unsuccessfully, tried to convince me that he knew what he was doing. We both walked away unconvinced, but the conversation left me wondering: where was this confidence coming from? And he wasn’t a one-off. As I explored this newfound addiction among friends and family in the forces, I found that an increasing number of people were hooked on derivatives trading. The financial advisors working with serving and retired defence personnel confirmed the trend that a growing number of serving personnel are trying their hand at F&O trading.

Backed by easy access to loans from their banks, a guaranteed monthly pay cheque, a pension waiting at the end of service and the constant stream of spectacular trading wins splashed across social media, many are taking risks that would have seemed unthinkable a few years ago. And the consequences are dire. According to a financial advisor’s account, one serving officer accumulated nearly ₹6.5 crore in trading losses over four years.

The bigger story, however, isn’t the losses because this has been documented well by the markets regulator. It’s the behaviour behind them. A guaranteed income and future pension create a financial safety net that can make outsized risks feel acceptable. The downside appears manageable, while the upside looks limitless. Layer this with FOMO, overconfidence and the illusion created by social media that successful traders are everywhere and the line between investing and gambling almost disappears. Of course, this isn’t unique to the armed forces. But the combination of financial security, easy credit and constant exposure to stories of quick riches can amplify these behavioural biases. A fantastic and important story by Shipra Singh explores this psychology behind risk-taking, and why it is leading some serving personnel down a dangerous path.

This week, Ananya Grover explored how loan approvals are undergoing a paradigm shift, driven by the account aggregator (AA) framework and artificial intelligence.

The RBI’s AA framework allows customers to securely share their financial data with lenders, giving AI-based underwriting access to a much broader dataset on a borrower’s income, spending patterns, liabilities and cash flows. The result is faster loan approvals and, in some cases, better pricing and higher credit limits. While this is good news for borrowers in terms of speed and efficiency, concerns around transparency remain. Today, despite consenting to share a broader set of financial information, borrowers have little visibility into how lenders process that data once received.

To address this, the RBI has proposed draft AI-lending guidelines that require greater transparency around automated lending decisions. At the same time, Sahamati, an RBI-recognised self-regulatory organisation for India’s account-aggregator ecosystem, has proposed a framework that would allow borrowers to track how their shared data is processed. Every action performed on a borrower’s data would generate a processing receipt, allowing the borrower to know, for instance, when a lender has used the information to assess income or evaluate creditworthiness.

Both initiatives also seek to address the problem of opaque loan rejections, and until these safeguards are implemented, borrowers should carefully review the scope and duration of their consent, share data only with RBI-regulated lenders and request deletion of their data once it is no longer required.

Ann Jacob, this week, looked at the silent but steadily rising cost of entrance exam coaching. Education inflation in India is around 10-12%, meaning the cost of education nearly doubles every six to seven years. That’s why factoring coaching expenses into a financial plan is not just smart but prudent.

Consider this: Coaching for competitive exams such as JEE and NEET can cost anywhere between ₹3.5 lakh and ₹4.5 lakh. If these expenses aren’t planned for in advance, families may be forced to dip into retirement savings, liquidate long-term investments or even borrow to fund them.

Experts caution against treating coaching costs as unforeseen emergencies and instead recommend planning for them as a separate financial goal. The story also highlights how herd mentality and social pressure often drive such spending, making financial planning just as important as academic planning.

In the investment space, Aprajita Sharma spoke to Nimesh Chandan, chief investment officer at Bajaj Asset Management, whose guiding investment philosophy is to invest only in businesses or asset classes he understands well. What also sets him apart is that despite all the recent noise around global investing, Chandan has no international exposure. With a strong home bias, over 80% of his portfolio is invested in equities, while about 7% is allocated to gold to cushion the portfolio during uncertain times.

Chandan has also steered clear of alternative investments and real estate, preferring assets that are easier to understand, track and manage. His biggest investing lesson is to be greedy when others are fearful, an approach that has helped him generate portfolio returns of 17-19%.

And finally, Shoaib Zaman and Jash Kriplani looked at the growing share of passive funds in India. While passive funds are nowhere near the US, where they account for nearly 55% of assets under management, they are growing rapidly in India and now make up about 16% of industry AUM. It’s true that much of this growth is driven by institutional and corporate money, but retail investors too are looking at passive funds seriously. The reason, experts argue, is that generating alpha is becoming increasingly difficult in efficient market segments like large caps and now even midcaps.

This is not a case for ditching active funds altogether, but for using a mix of active and passive strategies to secure benchmark returns even if fund managers underperform. Small-cap funds, however, still offer greater scope for alpha because of their wider investment universe and lower market efficiency. Just make sure to pick funds with a proven track record across different market cycles.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

This document captures income and financial transactions reported by employers, banks, brokers, mutual funds and other institutions. It consolidates information from Form 26AS, TDS certificates, Form 16A and other reported transactions, making it a useful starting point once you have identified the correct income tax return (ITR) form.

But, experts caution against relying solely on the AIS. The statement is not error-free and may not capture every source of income. In this year’s tax special put together by Shipra Singh explains why taxpayers should treat the AIS as a reference document rather than the final word, and highlights the information that could be missed if you file your return based only on the AIS.

The special also helps you identify the correct ITR form. The form you need to file depends primarily on the nature of your income, your total income, capital gains, and whether you have business or professional income. Reporting capital gains from shares, mutual funds and other investments has also become more detailed following a series of tax changes over the past two years. Our guide explains which form to use, how these gains are taxed and what you need to disclose when filing your return.

Being a tax filing season, we also included a guide for non-resident Indians who continue to earn income in India through rent, investments or other sources. While NRIs are required to file an ITR if their taxable Indian income exceeds the prescribed threshold, voluntary filing can help as it allows them to claim TDS refunds, carry forward eligible losses, maintain tax compliance and simplify future financial transactions in India.

The second story in Mint Money this week looks at the rising interest in commercial real estate away from the packed and expensive metros, towards smaller cities. Driving this trend are reverse migration and a growing multinational footprint, which create commercial real-estate opportunities for investors through lower entry costs, better rental yields and stronger capital appreciation. But this may not always play out the same way—execution delays, vacant properties and liquidity risks remain. Ann Jacob looks at how commercial real estate is shaping up in the non-metros, the risk-reward tradeoffs investors need to keep in mind, and some handy tips from financial planners to help eager investors navigate their decisions.

Ananya Grover this week looked at the new Reserve Bank–Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (RB-IOS 2026), effective from this month, to examine key changes in how customer complaints will be handled by the banking ombudsman.

First, and an important one at that: the new scheme has cast the net wider for aggrieved customers, as the definitions of “customer” and “deficiency in service” now include third-party products and ancillary services provided by the bank. “Customer” is now anyone who uses, or applies for, a service from a regulated entity, such as banks, NBFCs, and payment system participants, while “deficiency in service” has been extended to cover all services, not just financial ones. The scheme also gives the ombudsman the power to bring other regulated entities into a complaint if they fail to comply with RBI guidelines and issue interim, non-binding advisories to such entities.

Second, the quantum of compensation for aggrieved customers has increased. Third, the window to file a complaint has shortened from a year to 90 days, or roughly three months. Read the story for details.

And finally this week, an important story by Aprajita Sharma, who examined retention data from life insurance companies to echo the same concern raised in the Reserve Bank of India’s Financial Stability Report of high surrenders of life insurance policies. Customers continue to abandon their life insurance policies, with nearly one in two lapsing their policy within five years.

The RBI’s Financial Stability Report 2026 revealed that surrender and withdrawal payouts by life insurers exceeded maturity payouts, accounting for 38.3% of total payouts in FY26, compared with 36.9% for maturity benefits. The central bank warned that persistently high surrender rates could point to policyholder dissatisfaction, product mis-selling, or growing competition from alternative investment products. While for the customers of life insurance products, this means that they need to be on high alert when buying an insurance plan masking as an investment product, such high rates of surrenders doesn’t bode well for insurers either. While policy surrenders once boosted insurers’ profitability, regulatory changes have made them significantly less favourable for the insurers. Further, commissions payouts only seem to have increased. As a result, insurers are now shouldering both higher commissions to acquire customers and larger surrender payouts when policies are discontinued early.

In this week’s Money Guru, Ann Jacob spoke with Sailesh Raj Bhan, chief investment officer (equities) at Nippon Life AMC, about why the recent correction in market valuations presents an attractive entry opportunity for long-term investors. He also explained how global trends, including the AI-driven rally, inadvertently created value opportunities in Indian banking stocks, and why maintaining discipline around valuations remains the most reliable way to navigate market cycles.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

The idea was to preserve continuity benefits while allowing customers to move to a different insurer or health insurance plan. But what was introduced in the interest of consumers has become a sales tool.

Health insurance retention data disclosed in insurers’ public disclosure documents throws up some interesting insights. On average, one in four policies does not get renewed. This is not necessarily due to a poor claims experience or a weak product, but often to an incentive-led push to port policies, especially among younger customers, largely during the initial years after purchase.

In a Mint Money analysis of health insurers’ product-level retention data, we found that distribution economics, rather than consumer dissatisfaction, appears to be one of the key drivers of this early churn.

These retention numbers, however, need to be interpreted with caution because the disclosures are noisy and far from perfect. For one, the data does not capture internal migration between different products offered by the same insurer. It also does not adequately reflect product vintage, making it difficult to accurately analyse early churn.

More worryingly, we found instances where insurers had reported incorrect data. Despite these limitations, the disclosures offer a useful directional indicator of how persistency varies across products and insurers, revealing patterns that were widely suspected but difficult to quantify. For policyholders being nudged by an agent to switch to a new plan, it is worth doing a careful cost-benefit analysis.

Unless the incremental benefits are substantial or the price difference is significant, portability should be considered with caution.

Caution is key in investing as well. Take the euphoria around gold, for instance. After touching record highs, gold and silver prices have corrected sharply. Although less pronounced in rupee terms, partly due to import duties, the noise and excitement around precious metals clearly seem to be fading.

Just as last year’s rally in gold could largely be explained by a buying spree by central banks worldwide, the recent correction can also be explained by changing market conditions. Expectations that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates, a stronger US dollar, and profit-taking have all contributed to the recent decline.

Bringing both the highs and the lows into perspective, Shefali Anand, in this story, explains why neither should worry you if you understand the basic purpose of holding precious metals in your portfolio and are not investing in them to chase short-term gains. An allocation of up to 15% to gold can provide an effective hedge and lend stability to your portfolio when markets turn volatile.

In the investment space, Jash Kriplani looked at how balanced hybrid funds are making a comeback. After SEBI removed the restriction that required fund houses to choose between offering an aggressive and a balanced hybrid fund, more fund houses are expected to launch balanced hybrid schemes, aided by favourable tax treatment.

Unlike aggressive hybrid funds, which invest 65-80% in equity and 20-35% in debt, balanced hybrid funds, as the name suggests, take a more measured approach, with both equity and debt allocations capped at 40-60% of the portfolio. The idea is to strike a balance between downside protection through debt and long-term growth through equity.

And since balanced hybrid funds hold at least 40% in equity, they qualify for a long-term capital gains (LTCG) tax rate of 12.5% if held for more than two years. Gains on units sold within two years are taxed at the investor’s slab rate. A 50:50 blend of equity and debt has historically cushioned the blow during equity market corrections, which is why balanced funds could be a good fit for first-time investors seeking equity exposure with relatively lower volatility. But wait till they build a track record before investing.

Aprajita Sharma wrote about two important topics this week. One highlights the importance of having a comprehensive motor insurance policy that includes own damage (OD) cover, and not just the mandatory third-party insurance.

Understanding this cover is especially important during the monsoon season, when flooded roads, fallen trees and waterlogged basements increase the risk of vehicle damage. An OD cover, along with add-ons such as zero depreciation and engine protection, can protect your vehicle against rain-related damage and significantly reduce out-of-pocket repair costs when the rain-related mayhem strikes.

The second story looks at the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) Scheme, 2026. One of the most talked-about changes under the new rules is the simplification of withdrawal provisions. The new scheme collapses more than a dozen withdrawal categories into three broad buckets: essential needs, housing, and special circumstances.

Under the new framework, an employee who has completed 12 months of service can withdraw up to 75% of the EPF balance without any paperwork. Upon becoming unemployed, the employee can also withdraw the remaining balance after a 12-month waiting period.

The scheme also seeks to make EPFO more accountable by stipulating that claims must be processed within 20 days. If there is an unjustified delay, the regional provident fund commissioner concerned can be held personally accountable, with penal interest for the delay recoverable from the erring officer’s salary. It’s a must-read if you want to understand how the new EPF Scheme, 2026, could impact your finances.

And finally, in this week’s Money Guru, Ananya Grover spoke to Sachin Seth, regional managing director, India and South Asia at CRIF, about lending trends amid the rise in consumption-led unsecured borrowing and important questions borrowers should ask before taking on debt.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

Several behavioural economists have argued that market bubbles and crashes are often amplified by herd behaviour. While the sectors and themes may change every year, the tendency to chase the “flavour of the season” remains a recurring feature of financial markets. One of the biggest casualties of this behaviour is asset allocation.

A well-diversified portfolio draws on the strengths of different asset classes, matches it with an investor’s risk appetite and supports sustainable long-term wealth creation. Blindly chasing the hottest investment theme, on the other hand, not only hurts your portfolio but also prevents you from evaluating financial products through the equally important prism of cost-benefit analysis.

This year, subdued returns in Indian equities and depreciation of the rupee have made global investing a popular theme, with many experts and finfluencers advocating overseas exposure. But viewing global investing purely through the lens of a weak domestic market or a falling rupee is misguided.

The stronger case for investing internationally is diversification. Even then, investors should carefully weigh the costs against potential benefits. With most international mutual fund schemes constrained by overseas investment limits, many investors are looking to invest directly in US and other stocks through the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS).

Several platforms facilitate these investments, but the costs go beyond brokerage fees. Investors need to account for foreign exchange conversion charges, remittance costs and other transaction expenses. There are also important succession considerations, since these investments are typically held outside India. So, if you’re considering global investing, read this story by Shipra Singh on how to look at investing directly while examining key costs and succession issues.

The same herd mentality was also evident in the fortunes of Indian IT stocks, rising and then falling. A sector that accounted for 12–14% of the Nifty 50 just three years ago now makes up only about 7.6% of the index, weighed down by concerns over artificial intelligence and slowing global demand.

Yet, some early signs of recovery are emerging. Many fund managers believe the pessimism is already reflected in valuations, while strong balance sheets, healthy cash flows and the tailwind of a weaker rupee could support earnings over the long term. In this story, Jash Kriplani speaks to fund managers about why they continue to see Indian IT stocks as a long-term opportunity and why retail investors are better off accessing the sector through diversified mutual funds rather than sector-specific schemes.

And when it comes to AI, herd mentality is being fuelled by an acute case of FOMO. The result is a proliferation of AI courses that promise to transform your CV and give you an edge over everyone else. But if you’re considering enrolling in a course that costs several times your monthly salary, it’s worth going back to the basics of cost-benefit analysis.

Unless it’s for a highly specialised skill, on-the-job learning and practical application are often far more valuable than an expensive certification. Ann Jacob explains why it may be pointless to spend a fortune on AI courses solely to embellish your CV and why building AI skills gradually through smaller, more affordable learning opportunities can be the smarter approach.

And if you’re in the market for a second-hand car but plan to finance the purchase rather than pay upfront, this is a must-read. While a used car may come with a lower sticker price, financing it is often significantly more expensive than financing a new vehicle. Used-car loans typically carry higher interest rates and some additional charges, making the overall cost of ownership much higher than many buyers anticipate. Ananya Grover explores the different financing options available and explains why you should compare the total cost of borrowing rather than relying solely on the advertised interest rate.

And while we’re on the topic of vehicles, here’s another interesting story by Ananya Grover. If your car spends more time parked than on the road, a pay-as-you-drive (PAYD) motor insurance policy could help you save on premiums. A PAYD cover offers little benefit for regular use drivers, but if your usage is next to nil and you want a cost effective comprehensive motor insurance option that protects your vehicle beyond the mandatory third party insurance cover, a PAYD cover can help.

And finally, an important story specially since July is as much about tax filing as it is about the monsoon. If you are a resident taxpayer and hold any foreign assets, make sure you disclose them in Schedule FA (Foreign Assets) while filing your income tax return. Any oversight can invite scrutiny as the Income Tax Department receives information from foreign jurisdictions through global information sharing agreements.

So, whether you have overseas bank accounts you may have forgotten about, foreign stocks, stock options or other overseas assets, this story by Shipra Singh walks you through what needs to be disclosed and how to report it correctly when filing your tax return for FY26.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

You walk into a bank to get a home loan for your dream house, but you walk out with something you never asked for: an insurance policy bundled into your loan because the bank official told you it was mandatory. If that sounds familiar or if you know someone who’s had a similar experience, you know the problem is widespread.

Banks, by virtue of their vast branch network, are India’s largest distributors of financial products. But when selling third-party products becomes less about finding the right fit for the customer and more about meeting sales targets, like by pitching products as mandatory, promising superior returns or creating a fear of missing out, mis-selling becomes inevitable.

More often than not, the most vulnerable victims are senior citizens. This is hardly a new problem, but now the regulators are serious about tackling it.

More than a decade ago, I spoke to a retired scientist who was mis-sold a five-year single-premium ULIP at his bank branch. On maturity, his ₹50,000 investment had dwindled to just Rs 248 and the culprit was the very high mortality cost for a senior citizen taking an insurance plan. It was a shocking case that eventually forced the courts to intervene.

His story wasn’t a one-off. It was symptomatic of a much larger problem. Only now, there appears to be a coordinated push across policymakers and regulators to curb such practices. The Reserve Bank of India’s proposed framework seeks to ensure that banks follow three basic principles while selling third-party financial products: customers must be clearly told that the product is not mandatory, the product must be suitable for the customer’s needs, and the entire sales process must be transparent and properly documented.

Will this eliminate mis-selling overnight? Probably not. But it is an important shift from relying on fine print and signed declarations to holding banks accountable for what they recommend. Aprajita Sharma breaks down what the RBI’s proposed framework means for banks and, more importantly, for customers.

Staying with insurance, here’s something worth noting: a critical illness policy has become almost as popular as a regular health insurance plan, but the understanding of the product remains sketchy. Most policyholders don’t fully understand what a critical illness policy is and, more importantly, what it isn’t.

Unlike a health insurance policy, which reimburses your hospital bills, a critical illness policy is a defined benefit plan. If you’re diagnosed with one of the specified illnesses covered under the policy, the insurer pays you the entire sum assured as a lump sum. Think of it as an income replacement policy. While your health insurance takes care of the hospital bills, a critical illness cover provides financial support when you’re unable to work and your income takes a hit. It’s definitely an important value-add but not if you don’t understand the fine print.

Apart from the usual waiting periods for pre-existing conditions and new policy, two provisions trip up policyholders most often. The first is the survival period—the insured must survive for a specified number of days after diagnosis for the claim to be admissible. The second, and perhaps more important, is the policy’s definition of a “critical illness”. Every insurer has its own list of covered illnesses in a critical illness policy and each of these illnesses come with a standard definition and specified clinical criteria prescribed by the regulator. So a diagnosis that seems straightforward may not necessarily qualify for a payout. Before buying a critical illness policy, it pays to understand these exclusions as carefully as you compare premiums. Turn to this story by Aprajita Sharma for more details.

In the investment space, Mint Money brings you two interesting stories this week. The first explains why credit risk funds, despite the lure of higher yields, deserve a cautious approach. The second busts a long-held myth: diamonds are forever and so, make for good investments.

Let’s start with credit risk funds.

After nearly three years of monthly outflows, the category appears to be making a comeback. According to industry data, credit risk funds recorded net inflows of around ₹1,318 crore in April. As the name suggests, these are debt mutual funds that seek higher returns by investing in lower-rated corporate bonds. And that’s exactly where the risk lies.

The higher yield comes at the cost of taking on greater credit and liquidity risk. While many experts believe this is a reasonable time to consider the category, thanks to current yields of 8.5-9%, they are equally quick to point out that these risks can get amplified during periods of market stress. Credit risk funds, therefore, are not for everyone. They are best suited for investors who understand the trade-off between higher returns and higher risk and have the right appetite for it. If you are considering this category, read this story by Jash Kriplani who explains how credit risk funds work, the risks they carry, and who should and shouldn’t consider investing in them.

If our first investment story is about not chasing yield blindly, the second is about not being blinded by the sparkle of diamonds. The “diamond is forever” narrative has, over the years, also fostered the belief that diamonds are valuable investments. But try selling one during a financial emergency and that myth quickly falls apart. Unlike gold, diamonds lack a deep and transparent secondary market, making them difficult to liquidate. The investment case has weakened further with the rise of lab-grown diamonds and slowing demand from China, the world’s second-largest diamond market. Together, these trends have pushed prices lower, exposing the cracks in the long held belief that diamonds are valuable investments.

Experts say you should buy diamonds for the joy of owning and wearing them, not with the expectation of building wealth. If wealth creation is the goal, asset classes such as equities, or even gold, to some extent, are far better suited. In this story, Ann Jacob puts diamonds through the investment test and explains why they don’t make the cut.

And finally, to end this week’s newsletter on an investor protection note, don’t miss Shefali Anand’s story on the growing arsenal of tools SEBI has built to help investors navigate the markets safely.

From the Past Risk and Return Verification Agency (PaRRVA) that aims to improve transparency in the performance data reported by market intermediaries to verified UPI handles that help investors identify registered entities, the regulator is taking important steps to battle fraud and misinformation. The bigger problem, however, is awareness. Many retail investors remain unaware that these protections exist. The story walks you through the key tools SEBI has rolled out and, more importantly, how you can use them to protect yourself.

And finally, in this week’s Money Guru, Aprajita Sharma spoke to Parthanil Ghosh, managing director and chief executive of HDFC Ergo General Insurance, on how the insurer is planning to draw some balance between customer acquisition and prudent underwriting especially with regards to customers who choose to port to HDFC Ergo.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

Foreign institutional investors have sold nearly $30 billion worth of Indian equities so far. Yet there is a silver lining. The large-cap stocks, which have borne much of that selling pressure, are now trading closer to their 10-year average valuations and at a discount to many mid- and small-cap peers.

Why does that matter? Large-cap companies typically offer stronger balance sheets, deeper liquidity and greater earnings visibility—qualities that can provide stability when markets turn volatile. In the current environment, they can serve as an important anchor in a diversified portfolio.

In this story, Jash Kriplani explains why large-caps deserve a place in your portfolio and explores the different ways to gain exposure—from index funds to flexi-cap funds—while striking the right balance between growth and stability.

On a similar note, Shyam Sekhar, founder of ithought Financial Consulting, argues that while mid- and small-cap stocks can deliver outsized returns during periods of rapid economic expansion, investors should not overlook the relative safety of large-caps when growth slows. Such positioning can also offer protection against global shocks that may disproportionately affect smaller companies.

Sekhar argues that a combination of slowing growth and rising inflation could pressure markets and trigger large-scale redemptions. In such a scenario, liquidity could become a decisive factor, tilting investor preference toward large-caps because of the value they offer.

Beyond stocks

Against a backdrop of subdued equity returns, REITs (real estate investment trusts) are attracting growing investor interest. A REIT functions much like a mutual fund, pooling money to own and manage rent-generating commercial properties such as offices, malls and warehouses.

Though still a relatively small segment of the market, REITs have outperformed equities over the past year. The gains have been supported by rising demand for commercial real estate from global capability centres and expectations of lower interest rates, which make Reit yields more attractive.

That performance, however, needs to be viewed in the context of broader economic environment. Shoaib Zaman examines these trends, including the tax treatment of REIT payouts, and explores how the asset class can fit into a diversified portfolio.

To attract foreign capital and support the rupee, the Reserve Bank of India recently introduced a special swap facility that absorbs banks’ hedging costs on fresh dollar deposits. The move has prompted several banks to raise FCNR deposit rates to 6-7.1% for three- to five-year tenors.

The higher rates have made FCNR deposits particularly attractive for NRIs, writes Shipra Singh. Earlier, the gap between US term-deposit rates and FCNR(B) rates was typically 25-50 basis points. Today, that differential has widened to roughly 200-300 basis points, significantly boosting their appeal.

FCNR deposits also shield investors from rupee depreciation, as both principal and interest are held and repaid in foreign currency. While the opportunity is compelling, experts caution against using leverage to enhance returns, given the associated borrowing and interest-rate risks.

Make money work harder

For home-loan borrowers, Aprajita Sharma highlights a lesser-known way to reduce interest costs through an overdraft-linked home loan facility. The feature allows borrowers to park surplus funds in an overdraft account while retaining access to the money when needed. The parked amount effectively reduces the outstanding loan balance, lowering interest costs.

Although such loans may carry slightly higher interest rates, they can still reduce overall borrowing costs when used efficiently. The structure works best for borrowers who consistently maintain surplus funds and make limited withdrawals.

This week, Ann Jacob examines the growing popularity of fintech apps offering free portfolio reviews and analysis tools to retail investors. While convenient, these apps often function as customer-acquisition tools. Investors should remember portfolio performance is only one part of the picture. Asset allocation, tax implications and suitability matter just as much, yet are often overlooked in these quick assessments.

And finally, in this week’s Money Guru, Jash Kriplani spoke with Rahul Singh, chief investment officer (equities) at Tata Mutual Fund.

The conversation comes as Indian markets navigate global uncertainty, persistent foreign outflows and the growing impact of AI-led disruption. Against that backdrop, Singh highlighted two key priorities for investors: maintain a disciplined asset-allocation strategy, and within equities focus on core categories such as flexi-cap, multi-cap, and large-and-mid-cap funds rather than chasing thematic or sectoral bets.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

Organic farmers' markets, now commonplace across metros and large cities, were still nascent when I first encountered one more than a decade ago while living in Chennai.

Amid many varieties of mangoes from South India, I came across Imam Pasand. Having grown up on a steady diet of Dasheri and Langda in the north, Imam Pasand was such a delight to taste. One bite was enough to send me looking for ways to secure a regular supply.

India's love affair with mangoes is hardly exaggerated. Every summer, the fruit dominates conversations, family gatherings and newspaper pages. We write about varieties, regional specialities, recipes, harvests and prices. Mango season feels more like a prolonged festival, and thanks to e-commerce and farm-to-home platforms, it is now possible to get almost any variety delivered to your doorstep with a few clicks.

Given this near-insatiable appetite for the fruit, it was perhaps only a matter of time before someone decided to financialise it. Enter mango bonds, mango subscriptions and even mango tree rentals. The premise is simple—pay upfront today to secure a supply of mangoes, typically Alphonsos from Ratnagiri or Devgad, for a number of years. Some schemes promise a fixed quantity of fruit every season. Others allow you to “rent” a tree and enjoy its produce annually.

The names would have you think you are investing in a financial product for returns, but in most cases, they are nothing more than advance-purchase arrangements that lock in future mango deliveries at a fixed price. The story becomes more complicated when these offerings are structured as collective investment schemes that allow investors to receive returns in cash rather than mangoes, with inherent risks tied to weather conditions and harvest fluctuations.

And this is where buyers of these seemingly financial products often get it wrong, explains Shipra Singh in this story, decoding the various structures now being marketed to mango lovers.

The conclusion is clear: these products are best viewed not as investments but as spending tools for people who know they will consume large quantities of mangoes every year. The economics work only if your household has both the appetite and the capacity to absorb sizeable seasonal deliveries.

Getting the math right is crucial when taking a home loan. But it's just as important to understand how your loan is priced. The repo rate, or the rate at which the Reserve Bank of India lends to banks, serves as the benchmark for most floating-rate home loans. So when the RBI cuts rates, which was the case till last year, borrowers would obviously expect home loans to become cheaper. But reality has played out differently in many cases. And the reason lies in a lesser-spoken-about component of loan pricing called the spread, which is a markup over the benchmark rate.

Under the RBI's External Benchmark Lending Rate (EBLR) framework, banks are free to determine the spread they charge on new loans. While factors such as credit scores and loan-to-value ratios influence this spread, lenders also have considerable discretion to factor in broader commercial considerations and customer relationships. So while it’s now a common understanding that the RBI rate cuts do not automatically translate into an equivalent reduction in home loan rates, it’s equally important to understand that banks can potentially offset much or even all of the benefit of a rate cut by widening the spread for new borrowers.

Lenders have become increasingly sensitive to credit scores: borrowers with exceptional credit histories may receive some or all of the benefit of rate cuts, while others may see little or no relief. In this insightful story, Ananya Grover explains why banks, grappling with pressure on their margins, have increasingly relied on wider spreads to protect profitability, particularly for borrowers who do not fall within their most preferred credit-score bands. For you, this means a careful shopping exercise in the market and negotiating with your bank when your credit score improves.

And staying on the topic of loans, especially the myriad taken at very high interest rates to sustain an over-leveraged lifestyle or meet expenses beyond one’s means, the debt trap can be very real. And the damage extends beyond your bank account into your life—from the stress of arranging funds to harassment by recovery agents.

For customers with a clear intent to repay their loans and some income predictability, debt-resolution companies can provide a solution. These companies help borrowers negotiate loan settlements with lenders and escape relentless recovery pressure by helping them to close loans by negotiating a reduced outstanding amount when repayment has become genuinely impossible. But this relief comes at a cost: the loan is marked as “settled” rather than “closed”, which can severely damage your credit score and make future borrowing more difficult and expensive.

In this story, Aprajita Sharma explains why piling up loans to sustain a highly leveraged lifestyle can be a costly mistake, and why debt resolution companies can help, but the damage caused by a poor credit score can haunt you for many years. Read the story to learn that some of these companies are dealing with customers carrying as many as 55 loans on their heads. Yes, let that sink in!

In the investment space this week, Shipra Singh spoke with Radhika Gupta, chief executive of Edelweiss Mutual Fund, who doesn't like to tinker with her portfolio much, even though she keeps a close eye on how it is performing. For Gupta, this discipline is entirely intentional. She has built a personal portfolio designed to run largely on autopilot, anchored by systematic investments across 8 to 10 mutual funds.

Her investment strategy also includes a carefully maintained cash buffer, a handful of startup bets, and a global allocation she has been building since 2011. All of this is driven by the philosophy that the less she tinkers with her investments, the better they perform. And that is a good investment mantra even for the average investor, best achieved via sound professional financial advice grounded in investment goals, risk appetite, and asset allocation.

In the insurance space, Aprajita Sharma examines travel insurance policies and why they see a higher incidence of claim rejections. A travel insurance policy covers not just hospitalisation while travelling overseas, but also offers protection against baggage loss, trip delays, cancellations, and more. However, each of these coverages comes with caveats that are important to understand, something that people often overlook because they treat buying travel insurance as a tick-box exercise before travelling abroad.

And on the topic of insurance, Ann Jacob spoke with Asit Rath, managing director and chief executive officer of Aviva Life Insurance, who believes that while the regulatory ecosystem is increasingly focused on distribution practices and disclosures, the industry must also move beyond transactional selling and focus on building long-term customer relationships. According to Rath, the industry's biggest challenge is not claim settlement but systemic mis-selling.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

When you write about personal finance, friends generally tend to cozy up and ask questions around their investments. In most cases, investments are never part of a thought-through roadmap to a goal, but rather a basket of random, scattered products picked up either because a friend who works in the financial sector suggested them, or because they were trending. Understanding of the underlying asset class, and the role it plays in long-term wealth creation, is almost non-existent.

So when a dear friend told me he had sworn off equities because they are a surefire way to lose money, my interest was piqued. According to my friend, he ticks all the right boxes: be tight-fisted with spending, accumulate real estate and save as much as possible. So when his banker friend nudged him towards equity investment and he experienced volatility first-hand, he was convinced it was not for him.

My gut feel was that he was sitting on random stock picks, but a closer look just blew my mind. He had nearly 90% of his equity portfolio in small-cap mutual funds. Little wonder then that every market dip felt like a personal crisis. The volatility was simply too much to stomach, especially for the only earner of a household that has young kids and ageing parents. I didn’t even bother asking if he knew where he had put his money.

So when I see small caps rallying even amid the market slowdown, I wonder how many investors will once again make a beeline for small-cap funds and over-allocate. But if you are finding it hard to look the other way, read this story by Jash Kriplani explaining the recent rally in small-cap funds and why they are best enjoyed in small measure. As of last month, small-cap funds delivered category-average returns of 7.76% over three months, compared to 3% for mid-cap funds and negative 4% for large-cap funds. In fact, the category drew net investor inflows of ₹6,885 crore in April, the highest in a year, according to AMFI.

The story makes a case for why, despite attractive valuations, it is always better to have a limited exposure to small-cap funds. Besides investing in small-cap funds directly, investors can also take exposure through multi-cap funds, where a minimum 25% allocation to small caps is mandated, and through flexi-cap funds. But given that small-cap funds invest in smaller businesses, often at an earlier stage of growth and more sensitive to economic cycles, volatility comes with the territory. It’s therefore important to stay patient, an investment horizon of at least five to seven years is recommended.

Staying in the investment space, and with trending ideas, global investing is the new buzzword. With the rupee depreciating against the dollar, the case has never been stronger. But global investing is not just about a currency hedge; it is also about diversification, given that India represents only 3-3.5% of global market capitalisation.

Investors broadly have three routes for global exposure, writes Shoaib Zaman in this story. The first is through mutual funds and India-listed international exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The second is through direct overseas investing. The third route is through fund structures based in GIFT City. Read the story, which details all three routes and explains why global exposure merits a 10-15% allocation in your portfolio. Of course, investors with substantial expenses overseas could consider a higher allocation as well.

Making a case for global investing, in this week’s Guru Portfolio, managing director and chairperson of First Global Devina Mehra explained to Shipra Singh how her conviction in global investing dates back to 1997, when the Asian financial crisis saw currencies, stock markets and economies across much of the continent unravel in quick succession. For Mehra, a single crisis, even in a growing economy, can wipe out a large part of one’s wealth. Since then, diversification across economies has become central to her investment philosophy, with ~85% of her portfolio currently allocated globally. Her investment mantra is anchored in diversification and asset allocation.

Ann Jacob wrote about a well-documented fact this week: high earners do not necessarily make high wealth creators. In fact, more often than not, while there is an inverse correlation with investing, there is generally an exaggerated correlation with spending.

The reasons are threefold. First, the behaviour in which splurging and looking fancy offers a far higher social reward than creating meaningful wealth for later years. Second is, and I say this drawing from a tiny pool of uber-rich friends, the overconfidence that a career path has only one way to go, and that is up. Third, of course, is an ecosystem that makes complex financial products easily available with glib sales pitches, while completely ignoring costs, taxes and liquidity.

Regardless of income levels, investors would do well to keep it simple, have a holistic approach to financial planning, and steer clear of a lifestyle that inflates faster than returns on investments.

Ananya Grover this week wrote about how small finance banks are offering attractive rates to get your money, whether it’s through savings accounts or fixed deposits. The higher returns stem from their greater dependence on retail deposits and the need to compete for savers. But this is not without risks, as these banks often lend to vulnerable segments. Experts suggest treating the higher fixed-deposit rate as the primary benefit and staying within the ₹5 lakh DICGC insurance limit that insures deposits up to ₹5 lakh per depositor per bank.

In this week’s Money Guru, Aprajita Sharma spoke to Bejon Mishra, consumer policy expert and former member of Insurance Ombudsman Advisory Committee. Mishra raised important questions around consumer protection given the rising health insurance premiums, complex policy wording and delayed grievance redressal. All of this is leading to fractured trust in insurance and ultimately poor insurance uptake.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

There is a silent crisis brewing in Indian households—the retirement crisis. India’s young demography may promise a significant economic dividend, but the absence of structured retirement planning poses an equally significant challenge—one that most households will eventually have to confront.

It was with this objective that the National Pension System was envisioned. Designed as a retirement solution for India’s vast workforce employed in the informal sector or private jobs, NPS focused heavily on the accumulation phase. The de-accumulation phase—how retirees generate a steady income after retirement—was largely left to annuities.

Under the original NPS structure, subscribers could build a retirement corpus through asset allocation strategies until the age of 60. At retirement, they were mandatorily required to annuitise 40% of the corpus. In effect, a substantial portion of retirement savings had to be locked into an annuity at prevailing rates. The remaining 60% could be withdrawn tax-free and used at the subscriber’s discretion.

But the focus remained on building a retirement corpus, not generating sustainable income after retirement. The NPS is no longer a nascent product. It is now reaching maturity, with a growing number of subscribers approaching retirement and looking for dependable income solutions.

Recognising this challenge, the pension regulator last year reduced the mandatory annuity threshold from 40% to 20%, giving retirees greater flexibility in accessing the corpus. But that solved only part of the problem. For financially unsavvy retirees, the question of how to manage the withdrawable corpus remained unresolved.

This year, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority attempted to address that gap with the introduction of the Retirement Income Scheme. Under RIS, subscribers at maturity will have two payout options extending up to the age of 85.

The first, called the Systematic Payout Rate, offers withdrawals at a pre-defined rate. The formula is simple: 1 divided by (85 minus the subscriber’s current age). For instance, at age 60, the withdrawal rate works out to roughly 4%, gradually increasing until the entire corpus is exhausted at 85. Since the corpus remains invested across equity, government securities and corporate bonds, only the withdrawal rate is fixed; the actual payout will still depend on the underlying fund value.

The second option, the Systematic Unit Redemption, works differently. The entire corpus is divided into equal units based on the withdrawal frequency chosen by the subscriber, and payouts depend on the value of those units at the time of redemption.

Jash Kriplani examines both approaches, analyses the kind of payouts investors can expect under different market conditions, and offers insights into which option may suit different kinds of retirees.

The second big story of the week is on insurance. For an insured patient, the process of cashless claim authorisation typically unfolds in two stages. The first occurs at the time of hospitalisation, when the hospital shares an initial report detailing diagnosis and proposed line of treatment with the insurer. Based on this, the insurer grants pre-authorisation for the cashless claim.

The second stage takes place at discharge, when the final set of medical documents and bills are submitted to the insurer for settlement approval before the patient can leave the hospital. To speed up this process and ensure that patients receive timely treatment without immediate out-of-pocket expenses, the IRDAI mandated a one-hour timeline for pre-authorisation approvals, the first leg of the claims process.

In theory, a pre-authorisation approval should lead to a smooth claims settlement process. Any subsequent disputes should ideally arise only if the treatment course changes significantly or new medical information comes to light.

But what is increasingly playing out is very different. Claims are being rejected at discharge on grounds such as non-disclosures or policy exclusions—issues that arguably should’ve been identified and addressed at pre-authorisation stage itself.

Aprajita Sharma spoke with policyholders to understand how quick pre-authorisation approvals later turned into distressing disputes and claim rejections. Their experience reveal how timelines may be followed in letter, but not always in spirit.

Ann Jacob this week writes about living wills, a concept becoming increasingly relevant in the context of changing family structures.

Imagine being critically ill and incapacitated, unable to make decisions about the course of medical treatment you would prefer. In such situations, the burden of decision-making falls on family members or relatives, often becoming a source of conflict, confusion and emotional strain.

Now imagine having a living will that clearly outlines your treatment preferences and designates who should make decisions on your behalf. The situation shifts from a high-stress dispute to a clearly defined plan of action focused on execution rather than disagreement.

Why is this becoming more important now? Because modern families function very differently. Family members may be dispersed across continents. Some individuals may have more than one family structure to navigate, while others may choose to remain single but rely on close friends or extended relatives for support. In all such cases, a living will can provide much-needed clarity and certainty.

Acknowledging the growing importance of living wills, Maharashtra has launched a dedicated module for digital living wills on the MahaULB portal. The story explains the mechanics, legal safeguards, costs and risks associated with digital living wills.

In the investment space, Ananya Grover writes about the dangers of approaching bonds with the risk appetite of fixed deposits.

Online bond platforms are increasingly showcasing corporate bonds and non-convertible debentures offering attractive yields. The temptation to move into debt products promising returns higher than fixed deposits is real—and many investors are taking the plunge.

A September 2025 report by Assocham and Crisil Intelligence highlighted this trend. The number of clients registered with Online Bond Platform Providers (OBPPs)—the SEBI-regulated platforms that allow retail investors to buy and sell listed bonds online—rose to 560,000 in FY25 from 350,000 in FY24. The monthly average retail trading volumes have also grown at a compounded annual growth rate of around 20% since OBPPs were introduced in 2022.

But while investors are chasing better returns, many fail to fully understand—or even account for—the risks these products carry, ranging from credit risk to liquidity risk. Higher yields often come with higher risk, a reality that can get overlooked in the rush for returns. The story details the essential checklist investors should keep in mind before buying bonds.

And finally, Shipra Singh writes about the second-order impact of a conflict raging in West Asia—one that has disrupted oil and gas supplies, pushed up fuel prices and weakened the rupee.

As fuel costs rise, logistics becomes more expensive, feeding inflationary pressures across the economy. The consequences are likely to be felt not just in higher day-to-day household expenses, but also in weaker earning potential for businesses, eventually weighing on household income growth.

Given this backdrop, the central bank—which until now has maintained a dovish stance and cut interest rates—is likely to shift to a neutral position and subsequently turn hawkish if current conditions persist.

Households, too, may need to take a cue from the central bank and reassess spending patterns. This is not a time for excessive optimism. Conserve financial resources and prioritise essential commitments such as tuition fees, insurance premiums, SIPs and EMIs, while postponing discretionary big-ticket purchases until the outlook becomes clearer.

In this week’s Money Guru, Ananya Grover spoke with Rishi Kohli, chief investment officer at Jio BlackRock AMC, who argues that fund managers need to move beyond pure stock selection for alpha and instead combine stocks, sectors and factor-investing strategies to generate excess returns for investors.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

For as long as I can remember, studying abroad has been the ultimate middle-class aspiration in India. One of the earliest books that captured this obsession for me was Anurag Mathur's The Inscrutable Americans.

It follows the journey of a small-town boy who heads to the US for higher studies. Through his eyes and with a generous dose of humour the book explores India’s fascination with the West, the prestige attached to foreign education and the belief that better opportunities lie overseas. Decades later, that aspiration hasn’t faded. If anything, it has spread deeper into many more households. But what has changed significantly is the economic logic.

The global economy is more uncertain, job markets are tighter, and the rupee is falling, making the cost of studying abroad higher. A $70,000 course that would have cost about ₹59.5 lakh when the rupee was around ₹85 to a dollar about a year ago now costs more than ₹67 lakh, as the rupee has crossed ₹96 to a dollar.

Add to this the living expenses and the lack of job guarantees, and the math is painful. The assumption that a foreign degree quickly pays for itself is no longer a given. In this context, Ann Jacob’s story takes a closer look at the true cost of foreign education today. Through conversations with students across countries, it captures a growing reality—finding a job is no longer easy, and the financial payoff of an international degree is far less certain than it once was.

A weakening rupee, driven by geopolitical tensions in West Asia and foreign investor outflows, has begun to add to inflationary pressures, particularly through higher fuel costs. Fuel prices have risen recently, with many states seeing a hike of at least ₹3 per litre. With oil imports becoming more expensive, concerns around current account deficit and inflation are back in focus. In response, the government has signalled a need for austerity, with households also expected to play a role by curbing gold purchases, limiting foreign travel and reducing fuel consumption.

Against this backdrop, electric vehicles are getting a renewed economic push. Ashwin Moorthy takes this argument further, detailing how to extract maximum value for money from your EV. As it turns out, much of it comes down to how you use and maintain the vehicle.

In the insurance space, Mint Money has two interesting stories. The first is the importance of having the right insurance agent by your side. Buying insurance is only half the job done, as how you buy dictates your experience during the moment of truth or when you make a claim. Because the real test of insurance comes at the time of claim, and that’s where things can fall apart.

Consider this: You purchase a health insurance policy through an agent who asks you to gloss over the proposal form and skip health disclosures to speed up the process. Later, you are hospitalised for something as routine as food poisoning, but the doctor notes that you are hypertensive—information you did not disclose at the time of purchase. That omission can give the insurer grounds to reject your claim. Just like that, your insurance becomes useless.

Insurance is built on the principle of utmost good faith, and it’s important your agent understands and respects this tenet. In this story, Shipra Singh outlines the checks and balances you should look for in an agent, so that you have a trusted aid who does not just sell you a policy, but ensures it stands up when you actually need it, and stays with you through the claims process.

The second story looks at newborn baby covers—an often misunderstood aspect of health insurance. When couples buy a family floater health insurance policy, it doesn’t automatically mean that a child born thereafter is covered from birth. Insurers allow a newborn to be added only after 90 days, and, even then, subject to underwriting. This means a medical condition that the newborn may have could make the child ineligible for insurance.

This is where newborn covers come in. They offer protection from day one, but with a catch: Most come with an initial waiting period of around 30 days, which means the complications at birth may still not be covered. Aprajita Sharma breaks down what parents need to watch out for.

In the investment space, Ananya Grover explores how mutual fund factsheets are evolving from compliance-heavy documents into investor-friendly guides. Fund houses are trying to make their factsheets DIY-friendly by offering clearer insights into portfolio strategy, sector exposure, risks, and fund manager actions. The story also highlights what to look for and the red flags to watch for when reviewing your MF factsheet.

In this week’s Money Guru, Jash Kriplani speaks to Vikas Garg, head of fixed income at Invesco Mutual Fund, on what rising bond yields mean for investors, how to position debt portfolios and why longer-duration funds may present a tactical opportunity in the current environment.

That’s all from the Mint Money team this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

Ever since I moved here, I’ve fully embraced the idea of a compact car whose sole job is to smartly GPS its way through narrow bylanes, dodging main-road bottlenecks and getting you to your destination faster. So, now that I am back in the market for a car, I find myself torn. Do I stick with a small car that does well in city chaos or upgrade to something bigger that also lets me explore the outskirts more comfortably?

For an auto enthusiast, this comparison may seem silly, but for a utilitarian, it’s a real dilemma. The timing hasn’t helped. Rising oil prices that can potentially push fuel costs and tightening emission norms have made the decision more complex. The fuel type itself has now become a key variable and I find myself seriously considering whether electric is the way forward. In this context, Ashwin Moorthy argues that a mix of economic and regulatory trends is steadily making petrol and diesel vehicles less attractive in India.

Higher crude prices and stricter emission norms are not only increasing upfront costs but also pushing up the total cost of ownership over time. EVs, in comparison, come with their own challenges—like limited charging infrastructure and higher upfront costs. But they are fast emerging as a hedge against fuel-price volatility and policy shifts. The story is a must-read for anyone in the market for a car and drowning in similar confusion.

In the investing space, Jash Kriplani looks at a growing trend: PMS offerings increasingly built around mutual funds. As mutual funds gain popularity even among HNIs, rivalling traditional PMS and other curated products, some portfolio managers are choosing not to compete, but to adapt. Their solution: PMS structures built using mutual funds. The pitch is straightforward. Investors get familiarity and simplicity of mutual funds, combined with professional portfolio construction, management and execution. The typical investor profile: new-age entrepreneurs and senior corporate executives. There’s also a clear tax angle driving this shift. Budget 2024 raised the short-term capital gains (STCG) tax on equities from 15% to 20%, hitting traditional stock-based PMS strategies, especially those with high churn. In comparison, mutual fund-based PMS offerings with lower churn and more tax-efficient structures are emerging as a viable alternative.

But the structure isn’t without cost. PMS providers charge fixed or performance-linked fees. A high-watermark ensures performance fees apply only after the portfolio surpasses its earlier peak. It’s important to note that the PMS fee sits on top of the underlying expense ratios of the mutual funds themselves. In simple terms, you’re paying a professional to build and manage a basket of mutual funds on your behalf. Since this is still a relatively new category, most providers lack long track records, making it important to assess whether they truly have an edge in asset allocation and fund selection.

Kriplani dives deeper into this evolving trend.

Also this week, Shipra Singh spoke to Kalpen Parekh on navigating choppy markets. Parekh’s playbook is simple: don’t chase past performance, let compounding do the heavy lifting and respect market cycles. His approach is rooted in asset allocation, mean reversion and ignoring market noise. According to Parekh, asset classes tend to mean revert and so, the right time to buy is during down cycles. The story details how he applies his learnings to his own finances.

Last week, we spoke to experts about navigating the current phase of uncertainty, and one consistent takeaway was the importance of maintaining a strong emergency fund. In that context, sweep-in accounts emerged as a no-brainer product for individuals.

Sweep-in accounts link your savings or current account to a fixed deposit. When your balance exceeds a preset limit, the excess is automatically moved into an FD; and when you need extra liquidity, the FD is broken, partially or fully seamlessly. The result: you earn FD-level interest on surplus cash while retaining liquidity. Ananya Grover explains how sweep-ins work in detail.

And finally, an inspiring story on senior citizens by Ann Jacob. This story explores how seniors, a highly skilled group who may have stepped away from formal work but remain rich in experience, are using their second innings to give back to society with the modern economy enabling them to monetise their skills.

In many households, retirement also brings a quieter shift: someone who was once the family’s breadwinner and deeply rooted in routine suddenly has ample time often leading to restlessness and frayed tempers. This story shows how that phase can be reimagined. Jacob spoke to individuals who are pursuing their passions while also creating meaningful income streams.

In our Money Guru series this week, Sandeep Tandon of Quant Mutual Fund explains why he believes the current environment could be the biggest buying opportunity since covid.

That’s all for this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

Edited by Rashmi Sanyal.

What I didn’t anticipate was how quickly global events would test that conviction. A war led by the US rattled markets, sentiment turned, and many first-time investors found themselves staring at losses. My friend’s portfolio is no exception. But his reaction is.

Whether it’s stocks he has held for a decade or his PPF contributions, he believes in the power of compounding. There’s no panic—just some light-hearted complaints about my timing. Markets will turn. So will his portfolio.

That kind of temperament, however, isn’t universal. Investors who first entered during the post-covid rally are now seeing their first drawdown. And the response, in many cases, has been predictable: stop SIPs.

The data backs this up. The SIP stoppage ratio crossed 100% in March, hitting 101%, meaning more SIPs were discontinued than started. Some of this reflects churn, with investors switching funds. But it’s still a sharp break from the 60-70% range seen in recent years, when inflows comfortably outpaced closures.

The impulse is understandable, but misguided.

In the early years of an SIP, returns often look underwhelming because most of the money hasn’t had time to compound. If markets fall during this phase, the impact feels sharper. Over time, that changes. A larger corpus compounds, cushioning volatility. An 8% drop early on stings; the same decline later is absorbed by years of accumulated gains.

That’s the point: SIPs are a long-term strategy. As Jash Kriplani explains in this story, when markets feel most unsettling is often when discipline matters most.

But market volatility is only one part of today’s uncertainty.

AI-driven job disruption, a weakening rupee and inflation worries are beginning to weigh on household finances. These concerns are no longer abstract—they are showing up in everyday conversations. This is when mistakes tend to creep in. Panic can lead to poor decisions. So can inaction.

To cut through the noise, Mint Money spoke to experts and asked five key questions:

• What risks should households prepare for this year?

• How should you tweak your portfolio now?

• How much emergency cash is enough—does the six-month rule still hold?

• What should you do about loans?

• What mistakes are investors most vulnerable to today?

And for newer investors:

• If your portfolio is in the red, what should you do?

The answers converged on a simple idea: the biggest risk isn’t the environment—it’s behaviour. What matters is how you respond. Build an emergency fund. Stick to your asset allocation. Keep debt under control.

Debt, of course, is a double-edged sword.

Most consumer loans—used to boost spending—are best avoided. But home loans are an exception. They are long-term, often floating-rate loans linked to benchmarks such as the repo rate. That linkage matters. When rates fall, your loan cost should too. But the transmission isn’t uniform.

RBI data shows that scheduled commercial banks passed on about 87 basis points of the 125 bps rate cut over the past year. NBFCs, in contrast, passed on only around 12 basis points as of February 2026.

As Ananya Grover explains in this story, slower transmission by NBFCs means borrowers need to stay alert. Early in your loan tenure, even a 50–75 bps reduction can translate into meaningful savings—making a case for renegotiating or switching lenders.

There’s a softer, but equally important, money lesson this season.

With summer holidays here, many parents are signing up children for camps and activities. As Ann Jacob writes, these can double as early lessons in financial literacy. A simple approach—budgeting for activities—can help children understand value, trade-offs and spending decisions. These lessons stick, especially when reinforced through everyday conversations at home.

And finally, a bit of travel inspiration.

Shipra Singh spoke with a Bengaluru couple who managed a 12-day trip to South Korea for under ₹3 lakh. Seeking a mix of culture, coastal experiences and local immersion, they planned a route across Seoul, Busan and Gyeongju—without overspending. That’s a reminder that even in uncertain times, experiences don’t have to be extravagant to be meaningful.

That’s all for this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

Edited by Rashmi Sanyal.

After a recent AI workshop in my company, I went down the rabbit hole myself. From building calculators for our columns to automating routine tasks, AI has suddenly made everything possible. Given the nature of journalism, I find AI to be an important value-add and not necessarily a replacement, but for many, AI and automation could create redundancies.

Even companies that once bulked up on hiring are now on an AI-powered treadmill. The data is already reflecting this shift. Nearly 97 technology companies have eliminated over 81,000 roles globally in the first quarter of 2026 alone. But the more worrying trend back home is that only a small percentage of households have any form of emergency buffer to protect their households against setbacks like job loss.

So when you see a video circulating of a techie who took up driving for a ride-hailing platform to pay his EMIs after losing his job, you realise this may be a story unfolding in many households. This is a stark reminder that financial trajectories don’t always move in one direction. And current geopolitical uncertainties are only adding to the pressure.

This is why it needs to be said clearly: the first step of any prudent financial plan is frontline protection, comprising an emergency fund of at least six months’ worth of expenses (ideally more in the current environment), along with adequate insurance. Ananya Grover spoke to people who lost their jobs to understand how they managed household expenses and to financial advisors on building an emergency fund.

Next up is a story on home loans. The techie struggling to service his EMI is not alone. Last year, nearly 80% of homebuyers relied on loans to finance what is often the most expensive asset they will ever own, but the journey is rarely smooth. More than half face documentation hurdles and approval delays.

Lenders often request additional documents during underwriting, creating avoidable friction. Consider this: one homebuyer was asked to submit proof of the seller’s income, causing friction because the seller saw that as a loss of bargaining power. And the paperwork doesn’t end there. Even loan closures can come with their own set of procedural hurdles. In this story, Ananya Grover speaks to home loan borrowers, highlighting these challenges and making a case for a system that is more transparent, predictable and borrower-friendly.

Shipra Singh, this week, examined how India’s central bank digital currency, or the e-rupee, is beginning to take shape as an alternative. The backdrop is the rise in fraud in UPI transactions, the country’s most widely used digital payments system. According to government data shared in Parliament, 1.064 million UPI fraud cases involving ₹805 crore were reported in the eight months through November alone.

Against this backdrop and amid concerns about other digital payment modes, the e-rupee could offer some insulation against online fraud, as it does not directly expose your bank account. Instead, it enables transactions through value stored as tokens in a digital wallet. So instead of paying ₹500 from your physical wallet, you pay ₹500 from a wallet in your phone, without a bank in the middle. The experience, though, may feel similar to UPI.

But does it offer complete protection? Not quite. There is no safeguard against user behaviour, gullibility, weak passwords or phone theft. Given this, the Reserve Bank of India is focusing on strengthening the existing UPI framework through proposals such as a one-hour cooling-off period for high-value UPI transactions above ₹10,000. Read the story for more.

In the investment space, Jash Kriplani breaks down balanced advantage funds (BAF)—hybrid mutual funds that dynamically shift between equity and debt based on market conditions. While the core idea of asset rebalancing is straightforward—buy equities when valuations are low and move to debt when markets look stretched—short-term performance can vary widely.

That’s because funds differ in how quickly they adjust allocations, the range within which they operate and the conviction behind their moves. Between January 2024 and March 2026, the Nifty 50 went through a full cycle of rally and correction. In the same window, Jash analysed the five largest BAFs by assets under management—HDFC Balanced Advantage Fund, ICICI Prudential BAF, SBI BAF, Edelweiss BAF and Kotak BAF.

While all adjusted equity they did so in different ways. Their approaches ranged from valuation-driven models to momentum-based strategies. The takeaway is simple: BAFs vary significantly in how aggressively and consistently they shift their equity exposure, making it crucial for investors to evaluate how a fund has navigated market cycles through the years, and not just recent returns.

And finally, Ann Jacob highlights the growing trend of micro-vacations: short, budget-friendly weekend treks and hikes. These are gaining traction due to minimal planning, affordability and easy access, offering busy schedules a quick reset without the need for extended leave. Trekking, in particular, is on the rise, with even the government pushing to build a stronger trekking culture.

However, such trips demand a reasonable level of physical fitness and financial preparedness, especially for longer or more difficult routes. Expenses such as proper gear and contingency funds need to be planned for in advance. Read the story to understand the costs involved and what sort of preparation you need to be mindful of.

In this week’s Money Guru, Jash spoke with Trideep Bhattacharya, president and chief investment officer (equities) at Edelweiss Mutual Fund, who maintains cautious optimism even as he has turned bullish on mid- and small-cap segments, given the recent correction. According to Bhattacharya, investors should approach mid- and small-cap volatility through staggered investing and a long-term lens after fixing their asset allocation and risk appetite levels.

That’s all for this week, until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

Edited by Lokesh Yadav.

Cut to the present, despite the war in West Asia, gold has lost some of its safe-haven status. The reason lies in the nature of this crisis. This time, the conflict is disrupting energy supplies, fuelling inflation concerns and pushing interest rate expectations higher. The bond yields have risen in response, increasing the opportunity cost of holding gold, impacting its price.

Amid the turmoil, gold prices fell sharply from around ₹1.8 lakh per 10 gm in January to nearly ₹1.46 lakh in March, before recovering to about ₹1.54 lakh currently. For investors who saw gold as the only reliable source of returns amid subdued equity performance last year, this is an important lesson: while gold remains a safe-haven asset and an effective hedge against stock market volatility, over reliance on it can be risky specially during periods of liquidity stress. Read this story by Jash Kriplani, who explains why gold lost some of its sheen during the West Asia conflict and why gold exposure is still necessary but within a 10–15% allocation.

Over reliance on gold as an investment isn’t the only mistake many are making. Pledging gold for quick access to money and leverage, given its bumper run, can be even riskier. The gold loan market now is the second largest retail credit category after home loans, with average ticket size doubling from ₹90,000 to ₹1.96 lakh in just three years. Rising gold prices have increased borrowing capacity and quick disbursals have made such loans highly popular. But what happens when gold prices come down? Your lender may ask you to pledge more gold to maintain the loan to value ratio or force a sale. In this story, Ann Jacob details out key risks of gold loans and precautions to take if you have no alternative.

The new financial year has once again revived the debate between the old and new tax regimes. Recent changes such as higher allowances for education and hostel expenses and revised city classifications for HRA have made the old regime more attractive again, specially for salaried individuals in high-rent urban cities. Across both regimes, however, one component gaining traction is the car-leasing benefit provided by the employers. Leasing a car instead of owning it allows employees to use a car without the ownership hassles, but the bigger benefit is that it helps reduce taxable income. The lease rentals are deducted from pre-tax salary and are considered as an exemption bringing the total taxable income down. Compare this with buying a car on loan, the EMIs are paid from post-tax income offering no tax relief. Shipra Singh in this story takes you through the math.

In the insurance space, Khyati Dharmsi writes about alternative treatment such as Ayurveda, Siddha and Homeopathy, which are increasingly becoming mainstream with strong policy support. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India has also directed insurers to include AYUSH treatments in health coverage, and insurers have tied up with many Ayurvedic hospitals for cashless support. But claims are not always straightforward. That’s because a large share of AYUSH is delivered as day care, while insurance policies reimburse only treatments involving at least 24 hours of hospitalisation at approved centres.

Further given the nature of treatment that could be focussed more on wellness, claims are scrutinised carefully. This makes it essential for policyholders to verify hospital eligibility, policy terms and documentation to avoid rejections.

And finally, in the spending space, Anagh Pal writes about how OTT subscriptions, food delivery and quick commerce are quietly inflating monthly expenses. Yet the drain is almost invisible to the households used to the convenience now. Rising delivery charges, higher menu prices and increased ordering habits have pushed monthly costs up significantly anywhere between ₹3,000 and ₹8,000. This “cost creep” can steadily erode savings, making it crucial to track and rein in discretionary spends.

In this week’s money guru, Ann Jacob spoke with A. Balasubramanian, MD and CEO of Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, on market volatility and concerns over SIP stoppages. For Balasubramanian, the ability to withstand volatility is what builds real returns for the investors. He also spoke about the AMCs entry into the SIF segment and how investors should tailor their portfolios in the current environment. Read it here and watch the interview here.

Until next week.

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

Edited by Madhumita Sen Choudhury.

The idea was simple: customers should go beyond price and evaluate features that are relevant to their needs. And so the design was driven by usability and simplicity.

Every digital product operates with an overarching intent, and that intent ultimately shapes its UX (user experience) and UI (user interface). When the goal is to help users make informed decisions, the design reflects transparency and ease. But when the goal shifts to maximising conversions, as is the case with many digital products, by getting people to click ‘buy’, dark patterns often creep in.

Dark patterns are essentially manipulative design practices that push users to act not out of genuine need, but due to psychological triggers such as FOMO, confusion, guilt, urgency and many times plain subterfuge. We have all encountered them: “Only two left at this price”, “Hurry, offer ending soon”, or “Leave now and lose your discount”.

Now imagine these tactics being applied to financial products, especially insurance, which is meant to provide long-term financial protection for you and your family. The consequences are far more serious because the moment of truth for such products may come years later. Buying insurance for any reason other than actual need is a mistake.

Recognising this, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India issued guidelines on 2 April in which it asked insurers and regulated digital platforms to comply with the ‘Prevention and Regulation of Dark Pattern’ guidelines issued by the Central Consumer Protection Authority in 2023.

These guidelines essentially aim to prevent deceptive UX and UI practices. IRDAI has given 15 days to conduct a self-assessment and one month to submit a clean-up action plan. Ann Jacob goes behind the curtain to show how insurers are using dark pattern tactics to get you to buy policies that may be difficult to cancel later, sign up for auto debits without your knowledge and add features you do not need.

In the investment space, Mint Money this week captures two broad trends, both linked to market volatility arising from the Iran war. The first story looks at the renewed interest in defence and energy sectors amid geopolitical tensions, which have brought these sectors into the spotlight. While the broader markets have been in a downward spiral until the ceasefire, pausing briefly whenever there was positive news, the performance of defence and energy stocks has been slightly different.

The Nifty India Defence Index has been volatile, with sharp sentiment-driven spikes followed by quick corrections. In contrast, the Nifty Oil and Gas Index has remained relatively stable. To make sense of the renewed interest in these sectors, Anagh Pal spoke to experts to explain how such sectoral rallies, especially those driven by war, tend to be short-lived. Investors often enter near the peak and risk suboptimal outcomes. Even amid the current euphoria, it is advisable to remain diversified through mutual funds and limit exposure to such sectoral bets to a small portion of the portfolio.

The second story is about Specialized Investment Funds or SIFs. Launched in 2025, this category now has 11 schemes with assets under management of around ₹10,600 crore as of March. Unlike mutual funds, which typically buy securities on expectation that prices will rise and investors will benefit, also known as long positions where you buy low and sell high, SIFs can actively take both long and short positions using derivatives to generate returns.

In other words, SIFs can potentially make money even in a bearish market. This flexibility allows fund managers to take positions based on whether they expect prices to rise or fall and earn profits if their market view is correct.

Given this and recent market performance, SIFs have done relatively well, and that is largely why they are in the spotlight. However, their track record is limited, and it is still early days. Ananya Grover explores the category’s performance in this story and explains why, for now, SIFs are better suited as a tactical allocation to provide some hedge, rather than as a core part of a long-term portfolio.

Now, how you react to these market movements is not just influenced by your knowledge or the lack of it alone. It is largely guided by your money personality. If you are an avoider, you may simply sit out the current market correction and miss the opportunity to step up your SIPs. Someone who is financially anxious may struggle to handle the volatility, while a gambler may treat exactly these kinds of sectoral bets as core allocation, something we have been warning against.

What you do with your money is shaped by your behaviour. In this story, Shefali Anand takes you through different money personalities, how each can affect your financial health and what you can do about it.

And finally, Shipra Singh writes about the holiday season. Your plans to travel abroad, especially for a continental getaway, are facing a double whammy. The Iran war is pushing up travel costs like airfares, a temporary ceasefire notwithstanding, while the depreciating rupee is making overseas travel even more expensive. Although the rupee has recovered some lost ground from its lows on the back of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) measures and hopes of easing tensions, your European dream still remains expensive and may come with added logistical discomfort.

This season, the best holiday destinations may be inbound or oriented towards the East. Destinations in Southeast Asia, along with places like Japan, are options worth exploring if a holiday means stepping away from home turf.

In this week’s Mint Money Guru, Ananya Grover spoke to Rajeev Thakkar, chief investment officer and equity fund manager, PPFAS Mutual Fund. According to Thakkar, the fund used the market turbulence in March to its advantage by finding opportunities to deploy cash during the sell-off. He also explains why headlines around war and ceasefires have little relevance for long-term investing and how he is approaching equities in the current environment.

That’s all from the Mint Money team for this week. Until next time!

Deepti Bhaskaran is editor, Mint Money, with two decades of experience as a personal finance journalist. Her work reflects a strong focus on financial literacy, consumer protection and practical money management. She can found at deepti.bhaskaran@livemint.com.

Edited by Madhumita Sen Choudhury. Produced by Tushar Deep Singh.